Naming
by KrisEleven
Summary: The names that the new arrivals to Firefly receive tell a story all their own.
1. Alice

A/N May Eve inspired me to do some purging of the almost-complete stories I have been hoarding on my computer over the past few years, so here goes. Review if you like it (and especially if you don't), and thanks for dropping by. This is set after the BDM, and follows the crew for some years following in 5 chapters.

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><p>They were doing a job after Serenity was flying again, trying to keep out of the Core and away from the Alliance's attention. They were healin' their hurts from Miranda slowly, but mouths still had to get fed and the ship still needed fuel to run. Keeping out of the Alliance's view meant running more jobs out in the reaches of the planets and moons that made up the Rim where money and opportunities already ran tight and people fought just to survive on the rocks they had bled to make their homes on.<p>

Mal, Zoë, and Jayne had been meeting a new client in an outer-reach bar, dropping off merchandise they weren't supposed to have for money they needed when an officer of the law stepped in, suspicious. Taking the bar hostage (because 'aint that the lawmen's way?), the Alliance pretty-man was ready to arrest all three of them on the spot. Jayne was ready for the fight, but was beaten to it by the slim, dressed-up girl behind the bar who took exception to the officer's high-handed manner and hit him unconscious with a knock to the jaw that made Mal's teeth ache.

She was the daughter of a gunsmith and a bartender and she had looked through Jayne's posturing and smiled, offering him a drink on the house that he had gladly accepted in exchange for dragging the lawman out into the dust.

Mal and Zoë exchanged many an irony-filled glance when it became clear that she would be the perfect fit for their heavy-drinking gun-slinging mercenary. These glances were shared among the rest of the crew when a romance between the two actually sparked.

Their teasing died down (slightly) when they saw Jayne waiting by the hatch on their fifth visit to the moon, a messily wrapped present stuck under his arm. And when the two of them stood before Mal hand-in-hand, asking permission to board, Mal could find it in his heart to poke at them just once before hugging Jayne's new wife warmly.

(Wash would have brought up Mal's ill-fated marriage, and Zoë knew that was why no one aboard did so, though she _was_ tempted a mite herself.)

The thing was she _was_ perfect for Jayne. Her love of guns (she got that from her mama – and not only could she shoot every gorram gun in creation, but she could put them together, too) was maybe the only thing she and Jayne had in common. She was quick to smile but quiet, and had a simple goodness that shone through and made even her husband better. But she was still hard-as-steel, like all the Rim folk ended up being – if they didn't end up being dead –and she wouldn't back down for anything, no matter the sulks Jayne put up.

They named their first child after Jayne's mother, a tiny baby girl with her mama's strawberry-blonde hair and the fight of both her parents, delivered by Simon aboard ship while running from raiders looking forward to takin' from those who looked weaker than themselves. River had just broken Serenity into atmo, safe and in the clear, when Simon handed the baby girl to her parents. Jayne said her name first, whispered it to the tiny thing he held in his arms, the crew huddled around.


	2. Freedom and Rose

Mal tiptoed around Inara for nearly a week before he realised that she wasn't leaving them again. Inara had been ready to do most anything to get the Mal she knew back, up to and including flaunting herself or her clients, and after their first fight she went back to her shuttle smiling.

Though, of course, she would never let _him_ know that. And she was so busy hiding her smile from Mal that she didn't notice Mal was hiding one of his own, though Kaylee did and it warmed her heart to the quick.

They danced around each other until even Jayne noticed until, finally, they stopped at a busy port and Inara didn't book any clients and the crew knew that now, perhaps, their captain and companion might finally find happiness. If happiness could be studded with frequent temper tantrums and shouting matches. Then again, would they have it any other way?

When Simon confirmed Inara's suspicions, the soon-to-be parents fought over the name as they had always fought over everything. Inara wanted Mal to remember his mother with the name of their first, should it be a girl, but Mal wanted their daughter to have a name all her own.

In the end, they couldn't agree and didn't have to. Inara delivered twin girls, one named after Mal's long-dead mother and the other after what the whole crew of Serenity had always sought.

They named her Freedom.

(Their parental bliss lasted whole two days without a fight, until Inara blamed Mal's side of the family for the fact that they had twins.)


	3. Capissen

Freedom and Rose were walking and Alice had two younger brothers to keep in line while Kaylee and Inara sat together talking. Serenity's hold was still corrugated metal and sharp edges, but the children tramped around the two women on the stairs in heavy boots, Alice holding the hand of the baby to make sure no one fell as they played their game. Someone had been telling them stories again about Earth-That-Was and the hold had been transformed into a valley and the landing of the staircase of a ship into a besieged castle.

Kaylee remembered a time when this room was silent most often, when she would be working on the buggy and the quiet of Serenity would surround her until she could have been the only person in the black of space, just her and Serenity and the empty silence surrounding her. There were very few quiet corners now and Kaylee relished it.

She thought Serenity might enjoy it as well.

Life continued and the family aboard Serenity flew on. Some days were harder than others, and sometimes they wondered if they would be able to carry on. But Kaylee always kept Serenity going, and River kept her flying true, and Mal made sure they stayed a crew and they always made it through to the next job.

But while the other children grew, Simon and Kaylee had no babies of their own.

"Not for lack of _trying_," Kaylee commented wryly to Inara, as Freedom and Rose clamoured for a spot on her lap.

It was perhaps a good thing that it took them so long, as Kaylee was round and almost unable to even hobble around the engine room and they _still_ hadn't come up with a name.

Simon delivered his own baby boy in his own clinic aboard Serenity. By this time it had become routine, and he fell into what had to be done with his usual precision. It wasn't until the first cry that 'my son' crossed his mind and he had stopped and stared at the baby he held in his hands until Kaylee pushed herself up on her elbows and told him what she thought of Simon's manners in keeping them all waiting for the introduction.

It would be another three weeks before the seventh baby on Serenity got a name.

In the end, they named him what River told them to. It was one of Kaylee's favourite engines and Simon liked it because it was so utterly unlike anything he had ever thought he would name a child.

The name fit his boy and his new life perfectly.


	4. Heartbeats

River would know each of the babies born on Serenity, closing her eyes to listen to their new, fluttering heartbeats before their mothers even knew what treasures they carried. River listened to their voices – oh, their almost-voices – and knew their names.

It was only with Simon and Kaylee that she'd had to reveal this. There was only so much ridiculous behaviour she could take from her boob of a brother, after all.

River played with the babies, enjoying the simpleness of their minds. They were the only ones whose minds didn't hurt her, though she was careful to _never_ admit that to anyone; it would get back to Simon and she had to protect him from the truth, sometimes, because he was more delicate than her, even if she was more frail. But with the babies there was nothing worse than the simpleness of _want that_ and brief _hurt_ and _where is mama?_ and all of those could be solved so easy with a toy brought into reach, a kiss on a scraped palm, taking the baby into their mother's arms. River relished that, probably because there was no way for her wants and hurts and questions to be solved so easily.

But River felt, sometimes, the fluttering of a heartbeat under her own skin: the baby she would have when she was a whole person again, sometime beyond the now and the past and the sometimes-then she lived in.

She didn't know its name, yet.

The mystery was intriguing.


	5. Miranda

The first baby on Serenity was born exactly seven months and twenty-one days after her father died, born in Simon's clinic like all the others who would follow her. Zoe hadn't smiled in all those months until she looked down at the girl who had her hair and eyes, but, oh, she had Wash's face, and Zoe smiled and laughed and cried all together until Mal put a hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him.

"Miranda," she said and saw that Mal understood – didn't agree, but understood.

"Miranda Washburn," she whispered.

(River wasn't surprised. She had, of course, already known.)

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><p>The End!<p> 


End file.
